A Lifestyle Adventure - A Novel Review of Serena's Serenity

Are you a head-over-heels home schooling, mountain climbing mom? Maybe you're a mother-or possibly a grandma-of one or two preschoolers. Perhaps you are a career woman and desire to be a stay at home mom. You may even be a young lady facing a bright, uncharted future. Are you a grieving parent over a sick child or an empty place at your table?

Serena's Serenity will surprise you! This is a crisp, modern novel for all comprehending age groups. You'll feel for Serena as she sobs over her daughter's grave. Maybe you will cheer her on as she works under a difficult boss. If you've ever had financial struggles, this easy-to-read format will catch your sympathetic eye as you "watch" Serena improvise to make ends meet in order to be reunited with her twin daughters. How agonizing it is for Serena, as a home schooling mom, to be kept from that special task of making new memories every day with her children.

We all have dreams. Join Serena at the suspenseful piano competition in New York City and applaud at the duo announcements. Will her cherished lifestyle be reclaimed? If you aren't a home schooler, you will discover in a fun way some of the technicalities behind the scenes. Serena isn't alone as the chapters progress, either. There are several other key characters' lives in which you'll become engrossed with as well.

How thrilled I'll be if you are as encouraged by my heartfelt book as I have been through the years by Janette Oke's and Laura Ingalls Wilder's series. Laura and her sisters were often home schooled though it wasn't worded so in their day. Isabella Macdonald Alden, the instrumental aunt in Grace Livingston Hill's early developing career, also had a positive influence on me throughout my teenage years. Mrs. Alden's pen name was "Pansy." The history I like best about her was that she was born in Rochester, New York... where I grew up...and was often home schooled by her father. Her mother was Myra Spafford Macdonald, the daughter of Horatio Gates Spafford. Mrs. Alden's grandfather is best known for penning the hymn "It Is Well With My Soul" after his four girls were drowned at sea-only his wife having survived.

Belle married Pastor Alden in New York and continued to write about characters who were unswervingly committed to following Christ. Also a teacher in the Chautauqua assemblies, this author served as a role model to me. May this information edify you to treat the "rocks" in your "road" of goals as "stepping stones." II Corinthians 4:7 says, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."

As another author/preacher whom I respect said, "God doesn't want special people with special powers. He just wants ordinary saved sinners that God loves that are willing to minister-not lifted to heights of pride because we're so spiritual! We must glorify Christ, not us." May Serena's Serenity serve to do just that. Frequently, we as humans become too absorbed in our own lives than to think about others in positive ways. I trust that you'll be refreshed to keep on keeping on.

I'm grateful to be a home schooling mom as pioneering women have been down through the centuries. Have you ever studied out how famous Presidents had been taught at home? What an avenue for Christian parenting to develop the wonder in children's lives!